Perfection

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Thank you, Brother Neville. Good morning, friends. Happy to be in this morning, and I can pass the same comment on our brother. I'd promised him to be on the broadcast, and I missed it one week and the next week I forgot it. So I thought the third time ought to be a real time I ought to do it.
So I was just there in one minute of time, just one minute. And Brother Snyder was outside, so we slipped in real quick and finally got into the broadcast. And I think we upset them (is what we did) when we come in like that, just a little bit. And here I was, I'd... Coming down I'd thought of a text to preach on, you know, and usually in mine it takes about an hour and a half, and I got about fifteen, eighteen minutes of it started in. And then, I looked up and the clock said it's time to leave. So we'll continue next Saturday or some time. That's right.

2 Last Sunday, we was on the 10th chapter of Hebrews and got started on the first verse, and didn't get any farther.
Don't forget the services in Indianapolis this week. If any of you have any friends up that way, why, write and tell them. The services will begin tomorrow night at seven o'clock at the Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis.
And there's plenty of seating room, and nearly eleven thousand people it'll seat. And it's a small convention. It's a little organization. I really don't even know what the name of the organization is. They're having a rally there ... or, a convention, and in this convention they asked me to be the night speaker. So I think the fellowship itself, the church, the organization, only has just a very, very few members. And then, at night time I have the speaking service, every night, Monday through Friday. Friday night is the end of the convention.

3 So you got any friends around Indianapolis, why, come right up. And on the twenty-third, the morning of the twenty-third, if there happen to be someone traveling through here just on your vacation, as it is vacation month usually: June; Minneapolis, the Christian Businessmen Internationally is having their convention at Minneapolis, and the opening service is the twenty-third. The breakfast, the morning breakfast is the twenty-third of June. I'm to speak at the morning breakfast, opening the service.
Then on the twenty-fourth I'll still be in Minneapolis, and I'll be at the Heart's Harbor Tabernacle with Reverend Gordon Peterson. And they have the program telecast there, so if you're around, why, drop in. And then on the twenty-fourth ... twenty-fifth, rather, starts the convention, and we'll be there.

4 It's a very unusual program. Mr. Roberts, Mr. Hicks, myself, many more ministers is to be there, and there's no program lined out. The Christian Businessmen, being a Full-Gospel Christian Businessmen, they wanted to just leave it open to whatever the Holy Spirit would say do; have us all there. And so they've never had one like that, and they never advertised any speakers. The only speaking's advertised is the morning of the twenty-third: I'm supposed to speak at their breakfast, and that's announced. Otherwise, we'll just all be there waiting on the Holy Spirit.
That ought to be pretty good, oughtn't it? If we can just all submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, that's it, and let Him use us the way He would want to use us.

5 Now, and then, the next scheduled service, that I know of, is the old Azusa Street Rally. That comes September the fifteenth. I open the service there for the International Rally of Azusa Street, fifty years of Pentecost in the United States. They're fifty years old this coming September, when the Holy Spirit first fell in Azusa Street Mission, the old... I believe it was an old Baptist Mission, at Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California, is where the Holy Spirit first fell fifty years ago this coming September.
And when I was at the Cow Palace a couple years ago, I said, "Well, fifty... The word pentecost means 'fifty,' so why not we just have a big rally." And you know that caught afire, and they got an international rally. And it will be held in the Angelus Temple, and five days prior to that I'm to make a little panoramic around to the different places. Oh, down at East Gate ... I mean, at South Gate and on up into the city of... Oh, several of those little cities, five different cities, to make a little panoramic, one night service then go right into the big rally.
And if you're around California or out there... Some of you from California, remember that. We're expecting a great time of fellowship with God's people at that time.

6 Now, shall we pray. Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee this morning for the grand, glorious privilege that we have of coming into Thy presence with joyful hearts and thanksgiving, because that Jesus, the Son of God, has so permitted us to do this; and His grace has brought us up to this time, and we're glad to be here today. Glad to have this little place to gather. It's a open place, a open Bible, and open hearts to receive God's Word and His message.
And we pray that the Holy Spirit will come and fill every crevice of our heart with His goodness as we read His Word. For it is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
So, O God, open our mouth today, that it would be You speak, and our hearts that it would be the Holy Spirit to hear. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Thy Son. Amen.

7 Last Sunday in the book of Hebrews, we started with the 10th chapter, and then we got off on another subject, not knowing just where the Holy Spirit will lead us to teach from, nothing premeditated; just waiting for His moving.
We got back on foreknowledge. From that... Say, by the way, I'm glad to see Sister Hooper sitting there this morning. Sister Flo, sure glad to see you. Many of you may not know her, some of you; and she's been tubercular for years and years and bedfast and all over the nation trying to get deliverance. And today we're glad to have her sitting in the Tabernacle looking fine today. Thanks be to God.

8 Now, the writer of the Hebrew letter is supposedly to've been Paul, because it sounds like his writing. And the Hebrew letter was to the Jews, the Hebrews. And it was Paul trying to separate law from grace, showing the difference between what the law was and what grace is, because the Hebrews was under the law. And then Paul was trying to show them what grace was.
And I think, myself, that the 10th chapter here and the 1st verse would be a perfect key to the whole thing. Now, we have the 1st chapter starting out, "God, in sundry times and divers manners spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but in this last day through his Son, Christ Jesus."
Come on over to the 7th chapter, the appearing of Melchisedec. We come on down into the 9th chapter of the priesthood. How that Christ becomes our High Priest to take the place of the old high priest.

9 Then bring it on over to the 10th chapter. We come in the law being a shadow of the things to come. We go into the 11th chapter; and it's all about the wonderful shadows of the faith, the heroes of faith: how by faith they did such-and-such a thing, and how without us they could not be made perfect, because they are of the shadow of this to come.
And then, we go into the 11th chapter and Paul ... or, the 12th chapter, Paul saying, "Seeing that we are compassed about by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, that we would run with patience the race that's set before us."
The 13th chapter---the ending chapter---ends up with this, towards the end: that Jesus Christ is all in all, that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever (see), showing that it was Christ back before the law; it was Christ in the law; it was Christ in the days of grace, and it'll be Christ forever: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. What a beautiful picture the Hebrew letter paints to us.

10 Now, beginning again now with the 1st verse, let's go back. Last Sunday, we thought we'd get to the subject of "perfection." But then God moved us back and got "foreknowledge," showing us where that before the world ever was formed... How many was here last Sunday? Let's see your hands. Did you get it? Before the world was ever formed, we were placed in Christ. Think of it. God being infinite, who cannot lie, cannot speak anything contrary, knows everything just as perfect at the beginning as He is at the ending, and just as perfect at the end as He was the beginning.
God is endless like eternity. You can never find the corner of a perfect circle. You could run and run through ages and eternity, and there'd never, never, never be an end to it, and that's the way God is. And, first was God which always was; He was infinite, perfect to begin with. And He'll always be the same. He never can change. He's perfectly the same.

11 Now, this great chain of perfection was broken by time space. Time came because of sin. Let's draw a picture of time. Let's see a perfect circle: forever, forever. And then all at once, sin dropped in and put a little (as my wife calls it) a little hickey, or a little drop in the chain, so it comes down now. Eternity continues on, but it's not in its perfect condition.
There's a little gap comes down, breaks over this way, goes out this away. God had to do that because Satan caused it. And it dropped down to a space of time for the trying, and the perfecting, and for the purging of the lost, that God by His sovereign grace might someday lift that little hickey or gap back into the perfect circle. Then she rolls on just the same. You see it?

12 Time. Now, time is this little loop that loops down. Jesus was from eternity to eternity, but He stepped into the time spaces, was made flesh, and came through here in order to sanctify, or put a streak of blood all across this place to redeem it and connect it back with God again for all eternity. You see it?
That's all time is. Then God when it started here at the end of the little kink in the perfect circle that made it a little kink in it; when God started there, He was perfect. Everything He said was perfect. Everything He does is perfect. So then the Bible said that Christ Jesus was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the little kink, the beginning of the world. Christ was slain at the beginning.

13 Now, He really wasn't slain until four thousand years later. But the reason He was slain then because, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Do you see it, Brother Egan, what I mean? See? He was God in the beginning and when...
Now, Satan did not create this little loop, this little hickey. He didn't create that. Satan cannot create. Satan can only pervert what God has created.

14 Look. I say this so that you'll understand. This is the adult class, and we're mostly all married people, probably ninety percent. And I hope the young women and men understands, or boys, what I... Understand me just to explain something. If a man takes to himself a wife, a woman, and she becomes his wife, and they live together as husband and wife for fifty years, they're just as clean and pure and unadulterated as if they'd never knew one another. That's God's program.
But for that man or woman to go and live with another man or woman, that perverts, makes illegitimate children born. But if they live together in that perfect harmony, that's God's way. But Satan comes along and puts lust in the man or the woman, and they live contrary to those marriage vows, and that's perverting. It's the very same sexual affair, but it's perverted.
So that's what Satan does with God's correct thing. He perverts it. That's what Satan is doing today with the real genuine (listen), to the real message of God. He perverts it, makes something else, makes it appear to be something that it's not.

15 In the world today, we find that there is a people (The Bible predicted it), three classes of people. One of them is the cold, starchy, formal, indifferent. They just go ahead, no more than belonging to a lodge. They go to church, talk a little about this, that and the Lord, and so forth, come back but no actual borned-again experience.
Oh, some of them claim it, but their life proves that it isn't, see. Now, that's over on one side, way away. And now, down here on the other side, the fanatics... And the real, true church... Jesus said so, "Will be so close together, it would deceive the very elect."

16 Now, many people, as soon as they see the fanaticism mixed up with the real, "Aw," they say, "there's nothing to it. Go on." See, that's the same thing the Pharisees done. Satan doesn't fool with trying to pervert that. He's trying to pervert this truth, and this fanatic here is trying to impersonate that truth, see. There's where your danger line lies, right there. Now, it behooves us to stay spiritual. Read the Word. And anything that rises outside, contrary to the Word, then cast it aside.
That's the reason many times that they say I'm too hard on women preachers. The Bible says for them not to speak in the church. The Bible forbids them to speak in tongues or anything in the church. I have to stay with the Word. Watch where it's at.

17 Look at it. In the world today, where all this ism rises up. Watch on all the cults of non-meat-eating, and a legalist that "I've got to do so-and-so. If I don't speak with tongues; if I don't do this; if I don't shout; if I don't dance, there's something wrong with me." That's legalism. We are saved by grace through faith.
Nothing what you done. It's what He did. He did what you couldn't do. If you could've saved yourself, then He wouldn't have had to die. But He died in order to save you, where you could not save yourself.
That old God-dishonoring proverb says, "God helps those who can't help themselves," ... or, "God helps those who help themselves," they say. That's just vice versa. If you can help yourself, God expects you to do it. God helps those who cannot help theirself. And you can't help yourself to be saved, so God by His grace saves you.

18 Now, notice how beautiful. The law, great in the eternity, how God foresaw this loop. And if He is infinite and cannot be nothing else... Let me just take just about five minutes to drive this down tight, and nail it so it'll never slip from your minds again.
May the Holy Spirit then come and weld it together with love, so that you'll never leave it. Now, look. God who cannot lie, God who is infinite... And I say this again for people who can't seem to center theirself on divine healing: if God promised it, God's got to take care of His promise, can't leave it.

19 Now, look. Before He ever put the printed Word, and this is the mind of God. Here it is: This is the mind of God that He thought before the foundation of the world was ever laid. It is. That's the reason He could put it on printed words and say what would be, because He saw it before the foundation of the world and knew just what it would be, and spoke it out.
And then He handed down His knowledge to the prophets, and they wrote it out, and year by year and century by century, we see it coming to pass, just exactly. God giving us shadows of the old to foreshadow the new, and we see it word by word being fulfilled. What a faith we ought to have established in God.

20 Now, watch Him; Christ being slain before the foundation of the world... When God looked down and saw the only thing that would save lost man, He said (I don't know if this is the words, but it had to be something like this), " Man cannot be saved, because he's going to sin. But I look down through there and I see tens of thousands of honest hearts will want to come. I see thousands of people who'll want to be saved and not want to go into this horrible destruction that I'm going to have to make for the devil and his angels, because they've got to go into everlasting punishment. And honest hearted people will see that.
"Now, I will have a man by the name of Esau born. There'll be one Jacob, and Jacob will be not so good to begin with, but in his heart he'll love the things of God. So I'll choose Jacob."

21 He saw you, and He knowed that you wanted to be saved. So He said, "The only thing I can do is to go down Myself and have a Son born ... or, a body of flesh and be made like them."
The antidote is for God Himself to become sin, that He might pay the price, because it would take the highest thing there is to lift men from the lost condition. And look. He's above every Angel, every Archangel. The Highest there was come down here on earth, and lived among men and went to the lowest city in the earth: Jericho.

22 And was so low till the littlest man in the city had to look down upon Him---Zacchaeus---and then died for man's sins, come in the way of a stable, poor. The richest (Oh, I hope you get it) the richest become the poorest.
Even on a stormy night, said, "The birds have nests, and the foxes have holes, but I don't even have a place to lay My head."
The highest of all heavens of heavens, become the lowest of all lows, even to the animal life, was privileged to Him, above Him---as far as comforts of life. Not only that, but in His death, He suffered a death like no one ever suffered. Never any man ever suffered with such a broken heart till His blood and water separated before His death.

23 Poorest? From the richest to the poorest, from the most blessed to the most horrible suffering. And then besides that went down into the very lowest depths of the lowest hell, bearing our sins, and got the end of the string ... or, the end of the rope from the kink, there lifted it up in the resurrection and connected it with the other part of eternity, and made a highway of holiness, that the unclean could come on and be cleansed to the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins; when sinner's plunge beneath the flood, lose all their guilty stain.
Come onto the highway, and someday He who was at the beginning of time shall stand as the Ancient of times and will pull the great Gospel cord. And all that's on that highway from the beginning of time, to the ancient of time, to the end of time shall be lifted up as He draws time out of existence into an eternity. You see it?

24 There He is, the only true Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. How did He do it? Foreknowledge; He knew. Then He said that... He was the Lamb slain. Then if He was, four thousand years later, it just come in... The time run out. He was born. They done to Him what He said they would do, and then He was crucified and slain; but correctly He was slain before the world began, for God foresaw Him and said what would take place. And when God speaks, it has to be. You get it?
Oh, my. God foresaw Christ, and it has to be. That's why it was already finished. When God said the word, that finished it. There's the reason He was actually prefigured, slain when God spoke the word before the world.

25 Notice, not only Christ was slain to take away sin, but your name was written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world; God wrote your name associated with His, before the foundation of the world. Now, Satan, make them get scared now, get them to doubt that.
Before the world ever began, God called your name, you Christians, and wrote it in the Lamb's book of life before the world ever started, saith the Bible. That's God's Word. He spoke back there, revealed through His servants, the prophets; and we are enjoying the blessing of resting and waiting upon the coming of the Lord. Waiting for it. It's all over. We're waiting.

26 Oh, no wonder sickness, peril, nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ. From the foundation of the world He put us on that grand old highway, climbed up the horizontal rainbow, until the pinnacle of the beginning of time again, holding the ropes in His hand. And someday we're coming up.
We which are alive and remain till the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which have died in the highway. 'Cause the trump of God shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise. And we shall be caught up together to meet them with the chain's lifted up back into the cycle of eternity. And then as the ages roll on, His praises we'll sing.

27 What's He doing? Up there building us a home. "In My Father's house is many mansions; if it wasn't so, I would have told you; and I've come down here, but I'm going to prepare one: get it all fixed up. And if I go, I'll come again to receive you unto Myself."
Oh, my, and He's preparing a home. When this mortal dinge that's here in the earth shall be ... we shall be separated from it. It'll be cast to the outside of the chain of eternity. It'll be outside the gulf, which no man can cross or ever did or ever will. And when this link down here has lifted to that part that's the paved holy highway, that God said in the beginning where there was nothing to defile, there's nothing to destroy and sin caused this loop.

28 Then when this loop is continued right down through here, to bring out the delegates and when she's pulled up together to meet each end, eternity rolls on. They that are redeemed shall walk therein. You get it?
Oh, I wish I could sing. I like to sing that old song:
There's a beautiful home far over the sea;
There mansions are blessed for you and for me;
The glittering towers the sun will outshine;
That heavenly mansion someday shall be mine.
So a tent or a cottage, why should I care;
They're building a palace for me over there,
Of rubies and diamonds and silver and gold;
His coffers are full; He has riches untold.
Oh, amazing grace! how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I'm found,
I was blind, but now I see. (Nothing I done)
It was grace that taught my heart to fear,
It was grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!

29 To know that it was nothing I could do, or would do, or had an idea, or had a privilege of doing, it's what He did for me. He came down and redeemed me, placed me on the highway, stood at the other end to pull both these together to make the chain with eternity to roll on. I have a right to walk in that eternity, because He died in my stead, taking away my sins. Wonderful.

30 "The law having a shadow, a shadow of good things to come." What is a shadow? A shadow is "a forecast of an object." You know, a lot of times people quote 23rd Psalm: "Yea though I walk through the dark shadows of the valley of death." That's wrong. It said, "Yea, though I walk through the shadow." Not "the dark shadow." If it was dark, it wouldn't make a shadow. There has to be a certain percent of light to forecast a shadow. So the law provided enough light to see the shadow of the real thing to come.
Christ was represented in that law of the sha... He was represented foreseen, and Joseph, under the law, Joseph being a shadow of Christ, loved of his father, because he was a spiritual man. He saw visions, interpreted dreams, very spiritual, and despised of his brethren, correctly with Christ.
He saw visions of the father, and he was a spiritual man. And his brothers hated him without a cause, and he was supposingly to have been killed, a bloody garment placed back before the father. (Oh, how beautiful. Oh, I get started on that, I'll never get to this lesson.) The garment taken back to the father, bloody, representing his son being dead---Isaac. And today, the garment of the Lord Jesus, His sanctified life and His shed blood for sinners stands before God, as a memorial that the price is paid. Do you see it?

31 And he was sold for almost thirty pieces of silver like Christ was. He was taken up from the ditch, the pit, where he was throwed in; Christ was too. Taken from the grave and was set at the right hand of Pharaoh; no man could go to Pharaoh except by Joseph. A proclamation was made, that when Joseph come forth, that there went forth men before him (callers) saying, "Every one bow the knee. Joseph is coming."
Now the Bible said that, "Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess to the name of the Lord Jesus." He could bind Pharaoh's servants at his own desire. He had all the power and authority of Egypt given unto his hands. And when the chariot rolled down the street, everyone when the scream come, every Egyptian---no matter how bad they hated him---they bowed their knee to Joseph.

32 Someday, sinner friend, no matter how much you want to call it fanaticism, no matter how much you want to say it's wrong, how much you want to squirm and live into the world and despise the church and the things of God, someday you'll bow your knee whether you want to or not.
But how glorious it might be for those who love Joseph ... how they love him. Said, "Oh, here comes the great prince, Joseph. And they bowed their knee and said, "Oh, Joseph you saved our lives. We would've starved to death if it hadn't..." But others unappreciated; "Aw, nonsense." Ungrateful. We got that kind of people in the world today. You don't realize that the bread you eat and the very air you breathe comes from God. And they worshipped him.

33 Here some time ago when Mr. Baxter was my manager, when the king of England, when we was there to visit, when the Queen come out, lovely lady, her pretty robe on, her graying hair; and the King sitting so sick at that time he could hardly stand it. He had a stomach trouble and multiple sclerosis (That was just before he was prayed for), that he could hardly stand up. But yet the royal blood of him stuck what little chest he had out, and he rode down the street in the carriage.
Mr. Baxter standing there, and when he passed I looked at him. His lips was quivering; the tears was running down his cheeks. He put his big arm around me, said, "Brother Branham."
I said, "Yes, Brother Baxter?"
He said, "You know, I'm a Canadian."
"Yes."
He said, "The man who's over our land, the king, him and his lovely bride and wife, is passing by. That's where I can't hold my emotions. I have to give vent."
I put my arm around him. I said, "Brother Baxter, as a Christian with you, what will it be some glorious day, when the King comes with His Bride? If a man could think that when seeing an earthly king, which is mortal like we are, what will it be when we see the King of kings coming in glory? What a glorious time it'll be.

34 He was foreshadowed in Joseph. He was foreshadowed in David. The law foreshadowed Christ. David... Christ being the Son of David, and then when Christ being in David as a shadow, it made David when he was dethroned, rejected of his own brethren, not only his own brethren but his own blood: Absalom, and his own children... Here it is. They despised their own father, and called for his blood, and dethroned him; and he went up the hill, the Mount of Olives, looking back, weeping over Jerusalem. How that God foreshadowed Christ in David. For when he was dethroned---turned away---and His own delegates, His own people, the Jews, cried for His blood: "Away with such a person."
He sat upon Mount Olive and looked over Jerusalem and wept, saying, "Jerusalem, oh, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you like a hen does her brood, but you would not."

35 Christ was foreshadowed also in Melchisedec in the priesthood (in the 9th chapter and the 7th chapter of Hebrews). How that Melchisedec... Abraham also foreshadowed... All back there, all the good things, just a shadow ... and how that Melchisedec... In the 7th chapter we read of Him here. We just read it for a moment.
For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; [Amen.]

36 Abraham... Lot, his cousin, had backslidden. You see the real true Spirit of Christ (I hope you get it); no matter how far he had backslid, when he was in trouble, here come Abraham to him with an army. The aliens around about, through the valleys of Sodom had come down, and had took Sodom and its king, and took in there ... had took Lot with him. And Abraham, his uncle (blood relation, brother's children), when he looked down and saw that the enemy had taken away his blood relation, he formed an army of his own servants, went after him.
That represented Christ. When He saw the church of the living God had been caught away in error of the devil, He formed a legion of Angels and come to the earth to pursue the devil. Overtook him (Hallelujah.), scattered the enemy. Oh, how we love Him for that. Overtook the enemy, and He slew the enemy and robbed him of everything he had, cast him aside.

37 And what was the first thing they did? Abraham, returning back with Lot, his wife, his children, and all the possessions, triumphantly, walking back to the old home grounds again, he met Melchisedec. Melchisedec was the King of Salem. Salem is Jerusalem. When the Jews went into Jerusalem, they called J-e-r-u-salem---Jerusalem. Salem which means "the city of peace." He was the King of... Listen, let us read it.
To whom ... Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being ... interpreted the King of righteousness, [Who was this King that met him? Coming back for the triumph with the victory, as the church is today from Calvary.] ... after that ... the King of Salem, which is the King of peace;
Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days or ending of life...

38 Who was this King of Salem? A great King of Jerusalem, not the earthly, the heavenly. The earthly Jerusalem was a type of the heavenly; and here come the King of Salem, which is first the King of righteousness, the King of peace. He didn't have any father, didn't have any mother. He didn't have beginning of life or ending of days. Oh, my. Without a descent, none other than Christ, Himself. That's who the church meets when they go up in the air.
And when Abraham met Him, he give Him the tithes of all that he possessed. You know what they did? The first thing they did was sit down. (I feel really emotional.) Sat down and broke bread and drank wine and took the communion after the battle was over.

39 And the Bible tells us, Jesus Christ did, that we will eat no more of the fruit of the vine, until I eat it anew with you in my Father's kingdom. That when the last battle is fought and the victory's won and the waywards has been brought back to the kingdom of God, we'll sit down in the kingdom of God, and with our Melchisedec who has no beginning of days or ending of years (Oh, my, He's the King that's eternal One), eat the communion again with Him. Oh, what a beautiful picture this marvelous Old Testament gives to the New Testament believers.

40 The law having a shadow of things to come and not... Listen. The law having a shadow of good things to come; and not the very image of those things. It was a shadow of the image.
David ruled over the world in the golden age of Israel. What was he? The shadow! David sitting on the throne, all the world at his feet. What was it the shadow of? It was shadowing something, shrouding the Son of David, who is the Son of God, who is Melchisedec, who is beginning of days and ending of years; He has none. The shadow of... During the Millennium He'll sit on the throne of David and rule all nations: the shadow of good things.

41 What is it today? We look and see the shadow. Men and women who profess to be Christians and live like the world. They say, "Oh, I belong to church. What difference does it make?" It's a shadow of the deceiver from the garden of Eden, who pretended to be good, who pretended to have light, who pretended to have wisdom, but was a deceiver. And that's the way men and women does today that calls the name of Jesus Christ and doesn't depart from sin. Foreshadowing the punishment that they will receive with him who is a deceiver.
Jesus said to those religious Pharisees, "You are of your father the devil."

42 I hope you find it. I hope this soaks real deep---a shadow of deceit. Then what does that real royal, one-hundred-percent Christian that's borned again of the Spirit of God, whose name was written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world, who let come, let go, what may; they hold to God's unchanging hand.
What is it in their heart? It's a hungering for something yonder. For those, said the Bible, that do so, plainly confess by their testimony and their life that they seek a city to come whose builder and maker is God.
What is that hunger in your heart this morning to want to stand in His presence? What is that hunger in your heart this morning reaching out with all that's in you? All your soul and your life is crying for something till you say, "I don't care what comes or goes." Oh, God, something in you looking on the world, and the tears runs down in your heart.

43 Oh, lost brother, see the women in their degraded, demoralized way and see men drinking, and smoking, and cursing, and gambling, and going to church. What is it in your heart that cries out, my lost wayward brother? You've touched something up here. You've been connected with the other end of the line. You've touched a chain, a highway that chained eternity in the beginning, when your name was put there and seen by that great attribute or strain of God's knowledge, looked down and see that you'd come home, and yet, blinded by the things of the world down here, you have a conception.
When the Holy Ghost runs down this chain of blood and catches your heart, it speaks of a better land, and a better place, and a better city. Therefore you say, "This world is not my home. I'm just passing through. My treasures all laid up away beyond the blue."

44 God speaking... Let come, go, what may. Your heart's still centered. It's a shadow. The shadow is before you. That's what makes the shadow. The law having a shadow of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The law having a shadow... That's the reason He said in the Bible you have to take and compare scriptures with scriptures and make it come through, and if it comes a nick in it, remember you're out of line. Stay in that line of Scripture.

45 Now, "The law having a shadow can never make the worshiper perfect. Can never make the comer unto perfect, for..." Listen, 2nd verse (We'll try it the next five minutes). Look. "For then would they not have ceased to've been offered?" If the blood of bulls, and goats, and sheep, and heifers... And if the high priest was a right order, then the world would have continued on. Death would have ceased under that. You get it? Let it soak just a minute.
If Caiaphas, the high priest ... the offering of animal life would have perfected the man and give him eternal life, then there was no reason for anything else to take place. That would've went right on. Eternal life would've set in and growed right on, but there had to be a shadow of the real Lamb of God that was coming to take away the sin of the world, which had been forespoke by God.
And then men and women today, that was foreknown by God before the foundation of the world, their names were written in the Lamb's book of life. If they shout, all right; if they don't, all right; if they do this, all right; if they don't, all right, for God has already said so. It has to come to pass.
"It's not him that willeth or him that runneth, it's God that showeth mercy." God's choice, not ours.

46 Now, notice. Then them offerings would not ceased to have been, for they would not have ceased to be offered, because why? Here we're getting to the close now. The school's out. Because that the worshiper... Why? Because... Oh, I feel like a little kid with a Christmas toy now. I'm just so happy about this.
How I like to give it to the church, to you believers, to let you see what's truth, that they would've been all right, and never would have ceased. It would've went on, eternal life. "Because the worshiper..." Now, read it with me. "The worshiper once ... (not every revival, not every Sunday morning), but the worshiper once purged should have no more conscience of sin." What? "The worshiper once purged..." The purgative of the blood of the Lamb once thoroughly sweeps out, cleans out the worshiper. The very conscience of sin is gone.
Think of it. The word conscience in the right interpretation that we'd use here... This is the King James Version, in England it means "a conscience." In here, it would mean "the desire." The worshiper once purged by the purgative of Christ at Calvary, has no more desire of sin. Old things is passed away; all things have become new.

47 Now, you can sing like a lark and still have hatred, malice, and strife in your body ... in your soul. You can shout like, I don't know what. You still have it. You can dance in the Spirit; you can speak with tongues; you can prophesy; you can preach---any of those things---and still have malice, envy, strife in your heart.
But when the real true foreordination of God's eternal Word, when their name was written there, and the blood ever purges that person, the very thoughts of it condemns him on the tracks where he's standing at. Said, "Don't condemn me. I go to these places, it don't condemn me." Why doesn't it? You as a negative worshiper has never been purged by the blood of Jesus Christ.

48 And the legalist got a hold of this idea: "Hallelujah, I'll wear my dresses down this way and my dresses down this way. I'll let my hair grow long, and I'll be all right." That's a lie. And they point back to the woman with short hair and with short dresses and say, "She's going to hell." I can't say that. Still I think those things are all right. I'm not condemning them, but when you rest your eternal hopes and salvation upon that doctrine, you are damned with it.
A man or a woman, it doesn't matter whether you're this, that, or the other, you come to the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and let the purgative of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ purge your sins.

49 Brother, it won't matter: you can still have dresses, so long; you could still not wear short sleeves shirts, you men, and those things, or whatever you want to; but if you still got malice, and envy, and strife... You might've run, danced, spoke in tongues, shouted, preached the Gospel, or anything, but you're lost until that blood has cleansed you and set in a divine love of the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart, and in your life speaks of Christ behind you. Amen.
"Where there is tongues, they shall cease; where there's prophecy, it shall fail. Where there's knowledge, it shall be vanished; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is done away."

50 And we're resting today as legalists, upon some legal thing that we done. Why, when I was a sinner, I was a leopard. The more I tried to quit this and quit that, I only made my spots brighter. I was a hypocrite with it and so was you, but today when you come to Calvary to the purging where the real Lamb... Under the Old Testament they brought a lamb. They'd go out and commit adultery. They'd get mad, and fuss, and fight, and cuss. And when they did, they'd bring a lamb, bring it to the priest, say, "Oh, priest of God."
"Yes."
"I cursed my neighbor; I committed adultery; I told a lie; I stole." Lay his hands upon this dying lamb without a spot. The priest examined it. Had to be kept up to see if it was right. Laid his hands upon it, and they cut the throat and the blood went up over his hands. And the little lamb bleating, kicking, and dying, and the worshiper standing there said, "Yes. That should be me, but the lamb's taking my place."

51 But he went back out with the same desire. He'd do it again, just as soon as he got a chance. And that's the way people do today. They come in and confess and say this, that, or the other, and go back out and turn around do the same thing over again. Join one church, another; if this one gets a little something started, they'll go to this one and that one. But what was it the shadow of. It was imperfect. That could never take away sin, but it was a shadow of the real double cure coming.
And then Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came and died at Calvary, and the worshiper once places his hands upon the head of the Lord Jesus and knowing that the screaming and crying at the cross, that death, that vicarious suffering, he ought to pay it himself and that depths of hell where he should've went. He knowed that Christ paid the place and confessing his sins.
Then what happened? What made the difference? What went out of the lamb from the blood? Went the life. And the blood cell was on his hands; the life was circling the altar, but the life of the lamb could not come back on the worshiper, though he confessed that he was wrong, and the lamb took his place, because a worshiper has a soul, and he couldn't live as an animal. Right.

52 But, oh, God, cock back both hammers on the shotgun and let both barrels go to this church, is my prayer. But when the worshiper... "He that heareth my words and believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life (the Holy Spirit), shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life.
When the worshiper puts his hands on the head of the dying Lamb of Calvary and confesses his sins, and God recognizes that to be proof that from his heart he confesses his sin, that circling light called the Holy Ghost of Jesus Christ turns back into the worshiper, and he's purged and has no more desire of sin, for he's led by the Spirit of God and not his own life from then on.
He'll make mistakes, certainly, but that life will hold him. Watch. Let's go down to the 14th verse. We got time to finish it. Let's take the 12th verse.
But this man [not the lamb ... Christ] But this man...

53 He's talking now of the high priest order, how the priest went into the temple and so forth, worship. How the worshiper went back out with the same desires.
Men come to the altar and say, "Yes, I don't want to go to hell." Preacher preaching on how hot hell is and the altar's full of people. "Oh, God, I don't want to go to hell."
But they're never willing to yield that self, say, "Yes, Lord. Not my will from this on but Yours." Really realize what you're doing. Say, "God, be merciful to me."

54 The blood of Jesus is on your hands then. Don't you go out and start living the same life that you did. That blood will condemn you at the end of the judgment. You'd better have the life that's in that blood to return to your life's blood, return to your heart and make you live a different person.
The worshiper once purged. Watch here.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin for [How long?] ever [that chain that's eternity] for ever, sat down at the right hand of God; [At the end of the road. Where's He at? At the end of the road.]

55 You remember Sunday before last, the Sunday that I preached and illustrated the little ark of Moses that was going down through the bulrushes and everything? You remember how that you old people got to crying and shouting when I was preaching to the children, had all them little black and blue eyes sitting up here on the front row, telling them if you lose your life, you'll find it. If you keep your life, you'll lose it. You remember that, church?
You remember when I was in illustration, gave the illustration of that morning when Jochebed and when Amram, Aaron and Miriam all down before daylight with their hands up in the air, saying, "God, You gave us the baby, now we're giving it back to You. You gave it to us. It wasn't ours. It was Yours. You gave it to us, and now we give it back to you." [Gap in the audio.]... We keep it, the witches of hell will kill it. And those long, hook-nosed women come out there, and take its little head, and bust it against the wall. We'll lose it if we keep it, but if we give it back to the One who gave it to us, we'll keep it."

56 That's the same thing in your little bark this morning, brother, sister. You've got a cargo in there, the precious cargo of the world; it's called your soul. Go ahead, keep it. Live the way you want to. You'll lose it as certain as I'm standing here; and if you give it back to God and surrender your will, you'll keep it. You'll find it. Jesus said so.

57 Remember, and when they pushed this, the treasure of their heart; when they pushed it out into the river, old crocodiles coming up. I could see God, as I said, raise from His throne.
You know there's a lot of trials goes on down here, but there's Somebody looking at them all the time. They love not their life unto death. When poor old Amram with his only beloved little child, little Jochebed had just nursed it to her bosom and then had to put it in the ark and push it out into the bulrushes, where the alligators were fat on little babies... There when she was standing there and the tears running down her cheeks, God said, "Come here, Gabriel, come here a minute. I want to show you something. I got somebody that really believes Me." Amen.

58 God, let me be that type of person that can say, "God said so. It's right." And be so dead to anything else, till it becomes a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
Said, "Come here, Gabriel. All you angels come out here. I want to show you something. See that man down there with his hands up, he pushed his own baby out. I gave it to him, now he's giving it back. I'll see that he keeps it." Amen. Said, "Gabriel, call ten thousand angels on marching orders. I want them out here." Gabriel sounded a little trumpet and it crossed the corridors of eternity. Ten thousand armed angels walked down. Said, "String yourselves up and down the river. See that no alligators, nothing else is going to touch on that. It was give back to Me."
Gabriel said, "Lord, Chief Captain, where are You going to be?"
"I'm going to be at the end of the line. I'm going to receive down there." That's the same thing He does today when a man puts his trust in the Lord Jesus, confesses his sins; the Holy Ghost takes a hold of that man, and Christ stands at the receiving end.

59 Though through many whirlpools, and alligators, and scary spooks, and everything else, we come through... Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come; it's grace that's brought me safe thus far; it's grace that'll take me on.
Who's at the receiving end? Listen.
... for ever, sat down at the right hand of God;
From henceforth [up yonder at the end of the road] expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

60 Are you ready? Here it is. Here's the last turn on the bolt. Here's the last spot with the torch. Here's the last drive of the nail. This is the one who clinches eternity to eternity, and in there the sword of God's deliverance has went through the heart and hanging up his delegate to the Holy Spirit.
Here it is. Hebrews 10:14. Listen. Not my word, but God's Word who spoke it before the foundation of the world. It has to be so.
For by one offering He hath [p-e-r-f-e-c-t-e-d] perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Perfected how long? Till the next time you get on a outs with your neighbor, till the next time you see somebody, some man or woman or lustful, until the next time you see the chance to tell a big lie, until the next time you see where you can net someone, hurt them, and drive them away from church, so sometime you can criticize somebody? Yes, sanctified forever, perfected forever, where the Holy Ghost...

61 You might say something sometimes wrong; that's right. You might do something sometimes wrong; that's right. But as soon as you do it... Watch the next verse.
Whereof the Holy Ghost [Oh my. I just can't preach anymore. Look.] the Holy Ghost ... is a witness to us [My.]; the Holy Ghost is a witness to us; ... after that he had said before,
This is the covenant that I will make with them in those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts and in their minds will I write them;
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more against them.
Oh, God.
... every man that has this hope ... purifieth himself, even as God is pure.

62 Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee this morning for the purging of the Holy Ghost, for the grace of the living God. We were sinners, unrighteous, ungodly, unlovable, without God, without hope, alienated in the world; and Christ come and took our place. By foreknowledge God saw us in this condition, knowing that we were hungering and thirsting. No wonder Jesus said, "They shall be filled." Not "become member," not "they shall join," but "they shall be filled." Hungering and thirsting for righteousness. In other words, hungering and thirsting, knowing that we can do nothing in ourselves, no matter what we do.
The devil could make us impersonate every gift, could make us go out and lay hands on the sick, and they'd recover, could make us speak with tongues, could make us interpret tongues, could make us have wisdom, knowledge, but that doesn't take it, Lord.
You said, "Many will come in that day and say, 'Lord, Lord, have not I done these things in Your name.'"
You said, "Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. I never even knew you."

63 O God, then let our hopes be built on nothing less than Jesus' blood with righteousness; all around our soul gives way, then He's all of our hope and stay. For on Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; all other grounds is sinking sand. To know Him is life---not to know the orders---to know Him, the person.
I pray, Father, for every sinner in the building today that You'll save them just now; and may they, without any emotion, without any contradiction from the devil, but may they with a true, unadulterated faith, believe what they've heard preached, and accept the Holy Spirit who brought it. Grant it, Lord, for it's in His name we ask it.

64 And with our heads bowed, I wonder if there's someone here this morning... Now, I want your level, honest, truthful... No matter what you've done, no matter how many starts you've made, or how long you belonged to church, are you sincere from the depths of your heart of this, that knows that the things of the world has passed from you, to know that day after day and year after year, it continues on, your anchor holds. There's somebody yonder foreshadowing at the end of the road where this great kink will be drawed out. There's Somebody there tugging at your heart, knowing that someday you'll be lifted up.

65 If that's not gone from your heart today, friends, fellow citizens, pilgrims, poor little flock, God bless your heart. See you sitting here gray-haired, and stoop-shouldered, see poor little kids who maybe had to miss meals, and would I stand here and say anything wrong to you that... Well, God forbid. I'd be a... I ought to get down and repent before I'd even preach. I love you and that's with real Christian love.
Be honest now with the Holy Spirit. Has all those things passed from you, or has Satan deceived you and you're just living a halfway life?

66 Sometimes you think, "Well, all right." Next time, why, you: "Well, I don't know." And things happen that you know. And if that's your condition and this morning you want to surrender it all to Christ, remember what He said: "He that heareth My words and believeth on Him that sent Me hath (right now) everlasting life." Judgment's over. From that time on the thing will be dead. If you really accept it, it'll prove itself. Now, look. Don't be deceived.

67 You remember here long years ago when we had the church in order. (I'm talking to you. You're praying, heads bowed.) Remember when we had the church in order, when a message was given in prophecy ... or, in tongues and interpretation, when we wrote it down and laid it up here on the platform, witnessed by three men? I gave the message from the platform. If it didn't come to pass, you had an evil spirit among you. You come up here and made it right.
If a person done what was wrong, a sister or brother seen them doing wrong, they went to them. When they come in church, got them by the arm, went back here in a little room, said, "Brother, I seen you at the wrong place. I'm not going to say it before the church, because I love you. You were wrong. Let's us pray now," see.

68 Now, you be honest with yourself. If the love of Christ is in your heart above everything else, God bless you. You're all right. But if it isn't, don't be deceived. Those spirits are deceitful as they can be. They deceive you.
That's what the one done to Eve: told her a whole lot of new truth. "Oh, yes, God has said. Uh-huh." But there's a little flaw in it. That's what broke us this morning; we see the little flaw in the chain. That's what does all the trouble.
Brother, if it's not running perfectly with the heart of God, will you raise your hand now to God and say, "God, by this I really want to be right." Nobody look, but me. Raise up your hand. God bless you, lady. Someone else. God bless you. God bless you, and you, and you, and you, you. God bless you.

69 Now, He knows you. He knows every one of you. He knows just what's your desire. Now, our old-fashioned way (while you have your head bowed) is for people to come to the altar. That's fine. I like that. That's not a Bible affair. That's just a church doctrine. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become sons and daughters of God."
Right while you're sitting, and you've raised your hand, a dozen or more of you here, will you now accept in the depths of your heart, after you say you feel that you should, will you same group that raised your hands, would you raise your hand, say, "I will now accept this, Brother Branham. I'll now accept Jesus. No matter what I've done. I now accept Him as my Lover and my Saviour." God bless you, sir. God bless you, sir. God bless you. God bless you, lady.

70 "I now will accept Him. Something in my heart telling me that I want to. There's something telling me that I must, right now. This is my day. Maybe the next time I'll be too far away." God bless you, mister. God bless you, brother. God bless you, lady, I see your hand.
"Now, I feel I must do it." Friends, the church is cooling off. America's going to be judged pretty soon. Every nation received it. What are you going to be a hundred years from now. You're going to be somewhere. Sometime between this minute and a hundred years from now, you're going out of this world.
You'd better be sure. Don't trifle with it. The Word's being preached by the Holy Spirit, and it's the truth coming from God's Word. There's Someone who loves you.

71 Now, you can't raise your hand, unless Somebody calls you to raise your hand. That's the Holy Ghost. "No man can come to Me except My Father draws him first." And if He loves you well enough to knock at your heart and say, "Yes, I mean you. This is the time. I want to come in before I have to take you off this earth prematurely." I will now ask you to raise your hand. Won't you do it then?
One more say, "I now from the depths of my soul accept it." Now, I'm going to pray for you. God bless you, lady. I just felt, sister dear, that was you. I looked back there. Of course, you all realize I'm just a few days, few hours before the meeting yonder. I'm staying in my room right now, praying---healing service. The Angel of the Lord is near. Great things will take place. I looked back and seen something standing in the room. It was over a young woman. I seen others raise their hand. I felt a witness that that was truth.

72 I thought if I make one more call, that that woman'll just raise her hand, and she did. That was it. Now, God, the Lover of our soul, who are we anyhow? Why, before the world was ever formed You knowed every mosquito would be on earth, every ant, every chigger. You're infinite. And You knew this morning that people would raise their hand. You knew it. Why, You seen them before the world began. You've knowed it always, and You knew that this thing would take place, that You might express Your Love to your people. You said you raised up Pharaoh and hardened his heart that you might show Your power. How much more will You express Your love?

73 Satan, that evil one who perverted right to wrong, You let him do it, because You'd express Your love then to Your people. O God, we love You so much. We appreciate You, and I pray, God, that these people live a Christian humble life from this day henceforth, as they've accepted You.
And if there be others... Maybe I never seen them all. Maybe You never showed them to me, but You've talked to them. If there's others, bless them also. For we ask it in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

74 (Slowly now, sister.) You know, yesterday Brother Roberson was up to Brother Wood's. I slipped down; I was waiting for some visiting minister to come. He throwed on a picture, and a picture was... A lot of it we was looking at, but one of it, when the church was walking out the door.
And I seen myself coming out there, and I looked. Oh, my, boy, how ... what a few years has done to you. I looked again. That come in my mind this morning. Just a few more days we have with its toils and sins.
And I think of the times that when I heard that song start, see them make their way up here, stand around the altar to take communion. I've heard the casket wheels squeaking as she went down the room there, taking them out.

75 Remember, the preaching of this Word will stand in the judgment. And I'll have to stand behind it, stand there. I'll have to be a witness to that. I can't take it back, I've done said it. Got to stay with that. It's going to meet me in judgment, just as God said His Word and can't take it back, see. Now, I weigh every word first in my heart and see if I want to say it myself. If it seems wrong, I don't say it. I let Him say it, but if He says something contrary, though I wouldn't believe it, I'd say it anyhow, because it's Him. I want to be sure, because I don't want any mistakes that day.

76 You know, it's going to be awful dark down at the river that day. Ain't going to be nobody there to help. You ain't going to take no money down there. Your friends is going to be in the same shape you are. It's going to be awful dark. You got to cross. I want to be sure my ticket's right.
I want to be sure when I look on it, I see the red blood of my Master. Then when I hear after while the old ship blow, it's going to be all right then. But I don't want no trouble down there then. I want to settle it now. If there's any trouble, I want it settled now. I'm going to need ever bit of grace I can get at that day. I'm going to be honest.

77 As a great teacher said the other day: He didn't want to be popular; he wanted to be honest. I voice mine with him. I want to be honest. I want to tell the truth, so at that day when it does come, I hear the screams around the bank. I want to look down, be sure.
Like the Hebrew children when they seen them black wings coming across of death, the little boy say to dad, "Are you sure the blood's on the lintel?"
The father looked out, "Yes, son. The blood's there."
"Well, that's all right then. We're safe."
If it's not there this morning, friend, be sure. Now, Ora Mae, I know you come to be prayed for, sis. This poor little girl, how she sat here on the row as a little bitty thing there. Little Shirley sitting here. We just come in from Arizona.

78 I think of them little kids. All of you remember them, out here in a little old boxed-up house their poor old dad set together behind the church here for them. Remember those little fellows, how we all know them. How poor little Ora Mae... It takes two to raise a family. Oh, God, this horrible thing of marriage and divorce, and how Curtis done the best he could by them. He worked hard, but a child, no matter who it is, needs a mother's love, somebody to love them. It's nature to quieten your feeling.
I'm a hunter. I study wild life. That's just... And I get out and just study it. An old mother bear when she goes in in the fall of the year, she's bred to be a mother again. She runs all of her cubs away. She has from one to two. She runs them away. Make them hibernate themselves, so they'll be used to it.

79 The next year when she comes out, she's got two more little babies---one or two more. She mothers them through the summer, then fall she scats them away again. She has two more the next summer.
But what if she doesn't have any babies that year? You know what she does? She goes out; she tries to find those cubs. They're as big as she is. If she can't find them, she'll take a couple of little wolves. She'll take a couple coyotes. She'd take, actually, a human baby. Sure, it's been done.
She'll take that little baby or anything, and she'll mother it. It's just nature. She can't help it.

80 Look at a little girl with her dolly. Why, she ain't three years old. I seen my little Sarah the other night. I went in the room, nervous little thing. There she was sleeping with her little doll on her arm. I stood there and looked down. I thought, "Poor little thing. You know, it won't be long many years, dad will get old after what I am now, get gray and pass away, but that's foreshadowing someday of a real little baby laying there. That's just in you."
And if you don't love those little fellows, something else will take its place. If a man don't worship God, he'll worship his car. He'll go to the barroom. He'll do something else. He'll run around, because there's something got to take that place.

81 Now, our sister (I don't mean to get her into emotion), but not having a mother's care correctly, something else took its place. And the poor little thing is suffering this morning from a nervous break; two little babies. She's made mistakes; so have I, and who else hasn't. And I'm trying to say, there's Someone who's done forgive it. She raised her hand awhile ago. It's all gone. That come from a true heart, which I want to believe it did. Watch what happens. When she's an old gray-headed woman, it'll still stand. That's right, but she's nervous.

82 There's not a medicine in the world can help nerves. If you take medicine to settle your nerves, it'll make you twice as bad when it leaves you. There's not a remedy for nervousness, but I'm so glad there's a cure. You know, I've suffered that too. There's a cure, not a remedy, a cure, double cure.
On my sermon yesterday at the radio, The Arrow Of Deliverance, the preacher strikes so short of it as Joash did. He should've struck some more.

83 But look, my brother, sister, the remedy is Christ. Or may I say this in the pulpit behind this little old box built here... But it's just as sacred as any pulpit for the Gospel; it's been dedicated to God. We're a poor people. It might not have a gold layer over the top, but the Holy Ghost has come here and done some great things for us.
My sister dear, God bless your little heart. As a mother and as a child, if you'll accept what Brother Bill has said ... or, tells you now, I'll assure you, honey, that you'll go out of here, you'll be well.
Now, when you raised your hand awhile ago, that time you accepted Christ. I want you... In a few minutes I want you to come up here, and I can prove to you, you be the judge, by the grace of God and the Holy Ghost that's now standing here, I can make it leave you. That's right. I've never seen it fail, but then it'll come back to you when you get away from here (see) if you'll let it. But if you'll just not receive it anymore, no matter how you feel, you go on saying, "Jesus Christ heals me."

84 See, you've dropped, Ora Mae, from up here where you used to be happy, and ride that bicycle, and run up-and-down the street here; you was happy then. You didn't have the feelings you have now, did you? See? Now, you've dropped down here. It's because there wasn't nothing there to hold you, honey. You dropped down here.
But now you've got to believe that you're up here, and believe it; and faith without works is dead. If you believe it, then act like you're up there, and then God will just lift you right up there again.

85 There's your Aunt Meda sitting back there. She had the same thing. I had the same thing. I know what it is, but God is the cure. Are you going to believe it this morning, Ora Mae? Won't you come here?
Any of the rest of you, sick, to be anointed? All right. Let's bow our heads just a moment.

86 Church, all of you knows Curtis. You know Ora Mae. Just to look at Ora Mae, you can see something taking place. She's weary and upset. Ora Mae, this is a settling time.
I want to ask you something. Many times, Ora Mae, you said, "If I could just find some place to start from. If I could just begin at this time to feel better, I believe I could help myself pull out." See, that's right; isn't it? Well, you're at the place now, Ora Mae. You're at the best place in the world, at the altar where the only Person in the world can help you, will. That's God. I want you to bow your heads, everybody, and join with me in prayer.

87 Dear heavenly Father, as this poor little girl... Life is so short. Now, she's a young mother. I know awhile ago when she raised her hand, every sin was taken away. God, Your Bible is a witness of that. You spoke it from heaven that he that would believe would receive.
Now, she's got an awful struggle ahead of her, Lord. And Satan would throw her up yonder, take them babies away from her, and set her in a insane institution to butt her head against the wall. But she come to the right place today, at the altar. She come to the house of the living God. She stands here, as it was, alone at the altar, but not alone. The angels of God are encamped about. The Holy Ghost is near too, and she's a witness of seeing many things happen and know that You are God.

88 And I pray with all my heart, with all my soul that this day that You'll help Ora Mae. Now, Father, I'm taking from this altar, that's set here at this sacred place, where the Holy Ghost has overshadowed, it's called olive oil ... or, anointed oil, anointing oil. It's according to Your specification: the oil from the olives of the branch. And now, as I go forward to anoint my sister with this oil, You said, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick."
After preaching the Gospel, knowing that these great services coming up, Thy will be done here at Indianapolis, where many neurotics, deaf, dumb, blind, and everything will stand there. Oh, we don't fear one bit. You spoke it before the world began. We have a touch of heaven yonder that tells us it's the truth.

89 We go forward then to challenge that devil. Our people's in trouble. Just as Lot was in the sermon this morning, that Abraham went after him.
Satan, we come after you this morning. Our poor little forsaken sister is in trouble, and we come after you with anointed oil and with the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the divine Word of God and the Gospel. We go to lay hands on her in the name of Jesus Christ and we cast you away from her. Jesus said so and can't fail. Said, "In My name they shall cast out devils," and you are a devil. In obedience to His command, we cast thee away from this little weary, stooped down, seemingly forsaken woman. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses her from all sin.
Today she comes pure, holy in the sight of God, by the confession of her sins. By the virtue of this Gospel we cast away this nervousness. Oh yes, you can poke at her, but you can't touch her. We plead the blood between her and [unclear words] which stands as a mediator, and now you leave the girl. Let her go free, and from this day on, may she be happy with those little babies laying there, and her husband may he too come and be a Christian. Let all of hers someday in glory, the great family circle, be unbroken yonder. Let her mother, her dad, or all, everyone. Oh God, grant this. May she be free from this hour. We set her free. And Father, appointing love as commanded through the Bible at the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ through His blood and the Holy Ghost we bring her to Thee through Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
[Unclear words]. You feel all right, don't you? It seems like you're going to be fine. You look it. Now it's over then, and makes you Ora Mae again, only a new Ora Mae, a happy girl in Christ, and it'll all be gone. Come back here in about a year from today... say, "Brother Bill, you remember the morning when you prayed for me up there at the altar, that settled it..." Praise the Lord. Let us bow our heads now.

90 Our heavenly Father, in obedience to the commission of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, we love You today with a pure, holy, unadulterated love. And let Thy kindness and mercy rest upon each and every one. We thank You for the strangers in our gates, and we pray that You'll bless each one.
Bless our dear beloved pastor, our Brother Neville, who stands with us in the harness of the Gospel, not yoked up with the world, but harnessed up with Christ, all the harness of God on, pulling the old Gospel chariot on and on, yoked together as fellow citizens and servants of God...
Bless all the deacons, trustee, treasurer, every one that's concerned: all the members, the laity, the strangers.

91 God, there's coming a meeting yonder in Indianapolis. God, I'm not worthy to be blessed, but will You bless the people through the preaching of the Word. No doubt but hundreds will stand.
We also anoint the... in the Name of Jesus Christ that You'll help her and take away her troubles as I lay hands on her through Jesus... Now heavenly Father, grant that Your mercy be extended for her in Christ's Name.

92 And now with our heads bowed, I wonder now if there's anyone here that would--would have come to the altar, would want to come and kneel for a word of prayer, that's accepted Christ. I feel like that you'd just like to pray a little bit after the visitation of the Holy Spirit. Don't you feel real good about it? Don't you feel good? Come here, Brother Neville.
How many would just raise your hands, said, "I'd like to come to the altar for just a little prayer." Would you raise your hands now? "I'd just like to purge myself a little." Oh, God bless you. All right.

93 Now see, our Brother Neville, I think, I have noticed him in all of his walks, been a real man. I find him the same every day. Whether the battle's a going good or going bad, Brother Neville remains the same. I thank God for it. Brother Neville couldn't do that in himself. Takes God to do it. And I'm glad that this bunch of sheep has a shepherd like Brother Neville. I pray the Holy Ghost will help him and bless him. I love him, and I love his people, and all you people, we love. And we pray that God will bless you.
But now, while he bow our heads again, I'm going to ask that those who would want to be prayed for, want to kneel and purge yourselves would come humbly to the altar.
Now, Brother Neville, you offer prayer for them if you will. I want you to be in on this. And every one pray. You make your way to the altar.

Perfection

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 ...and to be here to worship together with you. And now just before the message, I have my good friend here on the platform tonight, Dr. Lee Vayle, from First Baptist Church at Lima, Ohio, who was one of my sponsors at the Lima meeting. I asked him, coming down tonight, if he would just say a word to the congregation, maybe pertaining to the Lima meeting, for the next moment or two. And I'm glad to ... happy to introduce to you tonight, Dr. Lee Vayle, another Baptist that's got the Holy Ghost.
[Brother Lee Vayle testifies of many people being healed.] Amen. God bless you, Brother Vayle, too.

2 That was all pretty strong for a Baptist pastor, wasn't it? Well, we are very happy to have Brother Vayle with us. And certainly the doors are open for him to come back and visit us at any time he can. And now tonight... Tomorrow night is The Entombment Of The Lord Jesus.
Sunday morning is the six o'clock sunrise service. And I believe the brother has announced the further part of the service. Now let us pray just a moment.
Blessed Lord, Thy Word is truth, and we are thankful for men who handle it, fearless, as they give it out to the people. And as we open up the Bible tonight, or turn back its pages, may the blessed Holy Ghost come and open the Word of understanding to us. Through Jesus Christ, we ask it. Amen.

3 Lord, this great night that we are celebrating, of the crucifixion of our blessed Lord. I wish to read tonight from His own precious lips, the words that He had written in His book. In St. Matthew, the 4th chapter, we ... and the 47th and 48th verse, we read this:
And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? do not even the publicans so?
But be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

4 And tonight we gave out that we were going to speak on the subject of Perfection. Now, that seems like a very strange text to take for the night of the crucifixion of our Lord. But today, perhaps, you've been listening to the radio, and heard the different messages and the messengers, how they presented that great awful day when our Lord died for the sins of the world. So, I have chosen tonight to go around a different way to get to it, so it would be a little different and might refreshen you a little. And may the blessed Holy Spirit inspire the Word now as we take the effort to bring it.
God requires perfection. We want to bear that in mind: that there's nothing just part way can go in the presence of God. It must be perfect; our worship, everything.

5 Now, in the garden of Eden, God had Adam and Eve in the garden. And they sinned and transgressed the laws of God, by sinning, disobedience. And when transgression comes, disobedience is the transgression of the law. And the law of God, Him being holy, just unadulterated holy, therefore no spot of unholiness can ever stand in His presence. So, if sin came in the world by transgression, then sin must be dealt with before the sinner can ever stand in the presence of God.

6 Now, if there is no law, then there is no justice. But law requires ... or, justice requires a law. And the law, when it is called on, it projects justice.
Now, by the law, no flesh is saved. Now, the law cannot save us. The law was just the thing that put us in jail, but it has no redeeming power. The law only showed us that we were sinners, and condemned us. That's what law is to do. It's to bring condemnation, or to show you where your mistake is. So the law, in itself, could not save. It could only prosecute.
And God, being holy and just, He had to have a prosecution. He had to prosecute the sinner, because he had overstepped the boundaries of grace, and had become a law-breaking citizen. Then, he must be dealt with.
And every law has a penalty. For, the penalty of transgressing God's law is death. And it had to project death to the human race. And all of the human race is under the penalty of this law.

7 Now, when Adam and Eve had sinned, there was no way, no other remedy, that they could ever stand in the presence of God again, except this sin be dealt with. And no man can commit a sin of any type, no matter how little or how big, that individual sin has to be dealt with before the one who committed it can ever stand in the presence of the Holy God.
So, therefore, when Adam and Eve had sinned and had transgressed the law, they were subjects of death. And the law had to be executed. Therefore, it put all the human race under the penalty of death. Now, if we can only settle down for a few moments now in our thinking, and look at this great picture, and remember that every person here is included in this. Every man and woman, child, is included in the penalty of death, by the transgression of the head of the human race, Adam. By his transgression, every one of us fell victim to sin.

8 And sin must be dealt with. And so, God, in His great infinity and His great love... The law was to separate the sinner from his Maker; then he become annihilated---and totally annihilated. There would be no way for him to ever come back unless that sin was dealt with. And it would be very easy then to believe in a total annihilation of a sinner at the end, for he is completely, forever separated from the presence of God.

9 Now notice this sin. And how God, being just (and He could do nothing else but be just, for He is the resource of all justice), then there would be nothing else for Him to do but to place the penalty for this transgression. And the penalty was death, for He said, "The day you eat thereof, that day thou shall surely die." Now, it's a dark picture we have here.
But then, if we go back just a little further and find out the very attributes of God, the Bible plainly tells us that "God is love." But yet, being love, He has to be just. So, love does not mean just a thing that can be petted and played with. Love is the justice of God.

10 Now, when God seen that His children had transgressed His law and that they must die the death, then sovereign love stepped in to make a way. For, God seen that these children was to be absolutely, totally annihilated from His presence. There was nothing else to be done, for they had transgressed His law, and the penalty of His law was death.
And then, love of God went out for His subjects. And when divine love is projected, sovereign grace produces the object of the love. And God, by foreknowledge, when He loved His race so well; yet, with the penalty, He caused the substitutionary death to take place in the garden of Eden. That was, He substituted an innocent creature, a little lamb that knowed no sin, and it went for a substitute, to work and to die in the stead of the guilty sinner. And it was a lamb, slain, to hold the life of His subject.

11 All through the Old Testament they offered the blood of lambs and goats, sheep, bulls and heifers---a substitutionary death. But, all in the great economy of God, there was back in His mind the real object coming, which would be... Them were shadows of the real object that was to come. And the real object was to come, was His only begotten Son. All the lambs that died was only a shadow. And a shadow is only the negative side of an object. And they only spoke of Calvary coming.

12 Now for a picture of this, let's turn in our Bibles, to the book of Hebrews, and pick up here what Paul, the great apostle speaking, trying to separate these things for us. In the 10th chapter of the book of Hebrews, we read this.
And I just love the Word. The Word is the truth. And I like to read it before my congregation, because I know that in the judgment I'll stand with them, and I've got to give an account. So if I bring it from the Word, then I'll not be guilty; because it's the Word, and God's responsible for His Word.

13 We see so much today, of evangelists and so forth, building up around personalities. Oh, it's a disgraceful thing! And we find out, in going into churches ... we go into church and you find a certain pastor; he's got some little peculiar act about him, some little emotion. If you don't notice, the entire congregation will take that spirit. If he's just a little emotional, or jerks his head, or some little odd thing, well, the whole church will take onto that. And we've got today in our modern churches, to where it's sensations and little things like that. And it's got such a confusion. But, oh, my beloved brethren, if there ever was a time that we ought to be on the Word, it's today.
You see, I would hate to stand at the judgment and know that I had some little fickle-something of a little peculiar revelation, and misled people. I don't want them to have my spirit or my action, but I want them to have God's Spirit by God's Word, that produces truth.

14 So, on this great occasion tonight, I would like to read from God's eternal Word. Now, we realize that the law existed for many years, but the law could never take away sin. As I have said in the past, it was just a jail house; it was the great detective that told you what you had done, but had no remedy to deliver you. It put you in the pawnshop, but there was no redeemer to take you out, with it. It only prisons you, to let you know that you was a sinner. But now notice in Hebrews, the 10th chapter, as we read.
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image...
Remember, it was a shadow of an image to come. A shadow only introduces that there is a image making the shadow.
A shadow of the things to come, and not the very image [Notice.] of the things. ... the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which were offered, ... continually make the comers unto perfect.

15 Now, God, in the beginning, required perfection. Jesus, when He come to earth, said, "Be ye perfect, like God in heaven is perfect." And the law, having a shadow of things to come, could never make the worshipper perfect. You get the picture? Now, let's go it again so you'll be sure not to miss it. God requires perfect holiness. No one can stand in His image, with one little speck of sin. Jesus witnessed the same, and said, "Be perfect, just like God in heaven is perfect."
And the Bible says that the law could never, with its sacrifices, make the comer perfect. Then, the law could not perfect anything. It was only a pointer. These sacrifices, made every year, could never make the worshipper perfect. So therefore, no one under the law, or keeping of laws, or under the shadows, could be perfect.
For [2nd verse] then would they not have ceased to've been offered?

16 If there is anything that I can do to make myself perfect in the presence of God, then Christ did not have to die for me. If there is one thing that you can do that would merit anything in the presence of God, then Christ died in vain. No law-keeping, no legalistic ideas of yours, none of your own holiness, no things that you could quit doing, quit lying, quit stealing, quit smoking tobacco, quit going to the picture shows; still you are lost. Nothing can do it! Joining churches, rituals, ceremonies, baptisms, orders of the church, reading of creeds, saying of prayers; all those things would count nothing. You are lost! Not one thing can you do in yourself, for you are a sinner under condemnation. And there's not no way within yourself, or any creed, or anything that you could do or think of, of yourself, that could merit one thing in the presence of God, because you are a sinner to start with.

17 And the Bible declares that we were all born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies. And God could not take one man to die for the other, because one is just as guilty as the other. In the presence of God, the archbishop born in this world was as guilty as the lowest barfly in the city. One cannot atone for the other.
Therefore, he took an innocent life of an animal, a little lamb. And under the Old Testament (the law was), when a man sinned, he brought the lamb to the altar. Say if he transgressed any of the commandments, he brought the lamb and he laid it on the altar, he laid his hands upon the lamb and he confessed his sins, that he was wrong and knowed that he was guilty and the law required death. And he brought the lamb in his stead. And when he... The throat of the little animal was cut, and it begin to kick its little feet, and bleating. If you ever seen a lamb slaughtered, what a pitiful cry! The poor little fellow trying to bleat, and his little jugular vein is cut. And as he kicks and quivers, and as he straightens out, then quivers again and bleats, and the blood gushes. It bathes his little wool and the worshipper's hands.

18 And as the worshipper realizing, for committing adultery, for lying, stealing, whatever his guilt was, or even evil thinking, whatever it was in the least shadow, he was guilty, because it was his nature. He was a guilty person, not maybe by desire, but by nature he was guilty. And he had to recognize that this innocent little lamb died in his place. And he felt sorry for the little thing.
But the man, as soon as the lamb finally died, with the blood of the lamb upon his hands, he walked from the building with the same desire in his heart, that he had at the beginning. Why? Because the life that was in the little lamb... Life lays in the blood. Your life is in your blood. We know that. And the life in the blood of the lamb was animal life; therefore, when its little corpuscles were broken and the life went out of the animal, it could not come back to the worshipper, because the worshipper was a human being.

19 The blood made a covering, but it could not perfectly atone; for the man left the building, with the same desire to sin, as he had in the first place. But, doing this, he was looking forward to a time when there would be a perfect Lamb come. And he did it on the burnt offering, because it was the only way he knew about.
So, you see, when the blood was pouring, and the life went from the animal, it could not come back to the man; for one was animal, one was man; an innocent animal, to a guilty man.

20 But, oh, one day, some two thousand years ago, the Lamb of God was born down in a little manger in Bethlehem, and was led like a sheep to its slaughter. Some nineteen hundred years ago, this afternoon, at three o'clock He died. The spotless blemish Lamb of God hung on Calvary's cross and died for every sinner. Now, when the worshipper comes to this Lamb, by faith... And this is a different type of Lamb. It's not a Lamb like the other.
No man can come to this Lamb, except God draws him first. You see God's sovereignty? Oh, I hope this soaks way down deep now. Look. God knowed He had sheep in this world. He knowed He was going to have people to be saved, and His love looked down and seen those who would be saved; therefore, by foreknowledge, He predestinated a church to meet Him yonder, without spot or wrinkle. And if God required a church without spot or wrinkle, He had to have something to make it that way. He could not required... His justice, His judgments could not let Him ask such a thing if there wasn't a way to make it.

21 And man cannot do it in himself. He's a total failure. God let him see that through the law, through the judges, and through all the Old Testament. He sent the prophets, He sent the righteous men, and they found out that every one failed.
So, God, by His sovereign grace, sent, from the portals of Glory, His only begotten Son, to take our place.

22 Remember, if He would've said for the Pope of Rome to take it, he could not have done it. If He would've said for the Archbishop of Canterbury to do it, he could not have done it. If He would have called on the most holy reverend father or bishop of the world, he could not have done it. He'd have been just as far rejected as Judas Iscariot was. He could not do it, because he was born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, and needed atonement for himself.
Hallelujah! But there came One from the portals of Glory; none other, not a man, not a good man, neither a Jew nor a Gentile. He was nothing less than Almighty God, hid in human flesh. He came, Himself, to offer His own blood, for it did not come through sex. Sex had nothing to do with it. But He overshadowed a virgin, and brought forth from a blood cell that He created, Himself, the innocent One.

23 Then my salvation, yours, tonight, does not hinge upon the merits of our own acts. It hinges upon the positive sovereign grace of Almighty God who has chosen us in Him. Certainly. I could never be perfect, nor you could never be perfect. And we don't claim to be perfect. But we have this one consolation, that our faith rests in a perfect sacrifice that's already been received.

24 Then how do we know that we get that? When the worshiper puts his hands, by faith, upon the body of the Lord Jesus, and feels the terror of sin, and the mock of spit in his own face, feels the groanings of Gethsemane, the agonies of Calvary, and knows that he's guilty, and confesses his sins correctly, "O Blessed Lord, I am guilty. And I have no other way but You to help me. And by faith... You're bidding, the Holy Spirit has come and bids me come. And I now, by faith, accept Jesus as my personal Saviour." That life that come from Him on Calvary, called the Holy Ghost, which was hid in the blood cell of the Lord Jesus, returns to the worshipper and baptizes him with the Holy Ghost, into the body of Christ.

25 Then he's already judged. You don't have to worry about judgment. As I turn and look at that little crucifix, I realize that that represents His body. And now that body has already been judged. God can't justly judge it again, for it's already judged. God struck the judgments of death upon that body. And as long as I can find a way to get hid in that body! His judgment was struck for me and for you. We are free! Romans 8:1, said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." There you are: No condemnation! I don't care what comes or what goes, you are hid beneath the blood.

26 Again, how do we get into that body? I Corinthians 12:13, says that by one Spirit! How does the Spirit come? Through the Sacrifice. Where did the spirit lay? Within the blood. Why couldn't the animal come back? It was an animal. The animal spirit could not come to the human spirit and do anything to it, because the human spirit was a higher line of life than the animal. But no other man's spirit could come back. If you've got the spirit of some ancestor, it's spiritualism. But God Himself came, that His own Spirit, which is the highest line of spirit there is, can come back by the form of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, to the worshipper, through the blood of Christ, and take him into the body. He is safe.

27 Watch. The blood of bulls and goats would not work, seeing it was weak. Now let's start reading, about the 12th verse. All right. The blood of bulls and goats could not work, neither could it atone. Watch.
But this man, [What Man? The bishop? No. The pope? No.] But this man, after he ... offered one sacrifice for sin for ever, sat down at the right hand of God;
From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
Are you ready? Are you ready for the Word? Listen to this; then I want you to let it sink down. Listen closely.
For by one offering [not year by year, not revival after revival, not meeting after meeting, not day after day] ... But by one offering he has p-e-r- f-e-c-t-e-d [They have? He has!] ... by one offering he has perfected [That's God's requirement.] for ever them that are sanctified.

28 There you are. That's the answer to the death of Christ. That's the answer to Calvary. He absolutely, with His own blood, purchased our sins, and perfected forever His believers. Therefore, in Christ we stand blameless, perfected in the presence of God Almighty. We are underprivileged people, with our own doctrines; we'll been taught that we have to get up to a certain place, we have to do a certain thing. No, my brother, it's nothing you've done; it's what God did for you! We are now, if we are justified by faith, we are perfected forever in the presence of God.

29 Then Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect." Then, it was perfected forever. God, through the death of Christ, nineteen hundred years ago, today, perfected the believer, that He foresaw before the foundation of the world, forever. And those who He has called, He has justified. "Those who He foreknew, He has called; those who He has called, He has justified; those who He has justified, He has already glorified." He has perfected His believers.

30 Now watch, let's go back now to the 1st verse.
...the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of those things, can never with those sacrifices which were offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
Watch "perfect," is what we're talking about.
For then they should not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipper once purged would have ... no more conscience of sin.
What do you mean? The word conscience there, and right interpretation is "desire." And if a man comes (the worshipper.) correctly, before Christ, seeing His suffering, and he offers himself to Christ, and says, "O Lord God, there is nothing in me that can atone, but I'm wholly depending on You." Then that Holy Spirit comes into the human heart; the very sin question is settled forever, for every desire of sin has been taken from you. For if the law could have done that, them sacrifices would not've had to cease; but being that it could not do it, Christ had to die to make us perfect.

31 Friends, there is so many things that we could say tonight, about the perfection. We are always trying to gouge the eyes out of somebody else, to make ourself just a little holier than they are. But if we only looked at the picture, it's only God's grace that we are what we are.

32 Here some time ago, in Ohio, I learned a lesson the hard way. I was having a meeting down in Ohio, and I was staying out in the country. Because of the masses, I could not stay in the city.
We had been eating at a little Dunkard restaurant. And such lovely little waitresses, and decently dressed, and clean as they could be, very ladylike, waited on us. It was a little spot of heaven, to eat in such a place. Their kitchen was spick-and-span. And on Sunday they closed up and they went to their church. I got a little hungry; I was going to preach Sunday afternoon.
And I went over to an ordinary little ... just a common little American restaurant, to get something to eat. And when I walked in the door, what did I hear but a slot machine going. And was standing there a man of my age, which perhaps was a married man, with his arm around a woman, playing a slot machine. Our very law, the protection of our righteousness, of our goods, was standing there violating a thing that he was supposed to be protecting (because, it's illegal to gamble in Ohio), playing a slot machine.

33 And I turned and looked towards the back of the building. There was a bunch of teen-age boys, and an old rock-and-roll records on the machine, playing. A young lady of about eighteen years old, very neatly under her anatomy as a woman. But she was standing there with her dress hanging low in the front, and one of those boys with his hands on the girl, where they did not belong. And they were smoking and drinking. And I thought, "O God, how can You stand it?"

34 And I looked over to my right, when I heard someone make out a big groan. And there sat an aged woman, probably sixty years, or seventy years old. She had on those little old vulgar clothes, just about halfway up her limbs, and her poor old wrinkled flesh was just as flabby as it could be. And she had on this here lip makeup, and a great big purple thing on the side of her face, painted; a little pair of shoes on, sandals, with purple toenails, painted; purple fingernails, painted. And her hair was cut real short, and curled up, and dyed blue. And I looked at her.

35 And across the table sat two men, drunk. One of them (it was summertime) with a big old army overcoat on, with a gray scarf wrapped around his neck, and whiskers all over his face, belching and going on. And they excused theirself, the men did, from her, and started walking out like this, to the restroom.
I stood there. And I said, "God, why don't You destroy the whole thing? Why don't You just sink it beneath the earth?" I said, "Is my little Sarah and Rebekah going to have to grow up under such stuff as that?" I said, "How can You, God, in Your great holiness, ever stand to look at such a thing like that, and not send an earthquake and sink it?"
And as I was standing there, condemning the woman, as I was, I stepped back behind the door. I felt the Spirit of God come to me, and I stepped behind the door.

36 And I seen like something whirling. And when it was, in the vision, it was the world turning around and around. And as I noticed, around the world was a scarlet streak, around the world. And as I got to the world, I seen myself, just a little boy, doing things that I ought not to do; maybe not like that, but it was sin. And every time I did anything, I seen that great black shadow go towards heaven. Which, God would have killed me at that minute.
Then I seen standing between me and God, stood that perfect Sacrifice. I seen Him standing there with the thorns on His head, and the spit hanging on His face. And every time my sins would start towards God, He would reach out and catch it, like the bumper on the car. He was protecting me from death. And every time I'd do anything wrong, God would have killed me. Certainly, His holiness requires it. His law requires it. And every time I'd do anything, or you do anything, the blood of Jesus Christ acts like a bumper. And I seen that scarlet streak meant then that the blood still holds the earth.

37 And as I stood, looking, I got a little closer to Him as I noticed Him. And I could hear Him say, "Father, forgive him; he doesn't know what he's doing." And I looked down, and there laid a book. And there was a recording Angel there, and standing by His side. And every time I sinned, it was put down on the book. And my name was on it. And I realized that some day, that blood streak would be lifted and I'd have to stand in the presence of God, with my sinful life. But, I seen, by His mercy He was holding off my judgment.
I went to Him, humbly. I knelt on my knees, and I said, "O Jesus, Thou Son of God, I am unworthy to come in Your presence. But will You please forgive me for what I have done?"
He touched His side with His hand, took the old book and wrote "Pardoned" on it, throwed it back behind Him, and my sins were gone. Then He looked me stern in the face. He said, "Now I have forgiven you, but you want to condemn her." Then I seen what it meant.

38 As I come out of the vision, I walked over to her. I said, "How do you do?"
She was drinking. She looked up at me, and she said, "Oh, hello."
I said, "Could I sit down?"
She said, "I have company."
I said, "I don't mean it in that way, lady. I just want to speak to you, a minute."
She said, "Be seated."
And I said, "Lady, just a few minutes ago, standing yonder behind that door..." I begin to tell her. And as I begin to look, the tears begin to run down her cheeks. And she told me... I said, "Lady, you don't mean to do these things. Jesus died, and the judgments of God is held off by His blood. You don't mean to do this."
And she said, "No, sir." She said, "My father was a deacon in church. I was raised in a Christian home. My husband and I were charter members, and lived a Christian life." She begin to tell me, after his death... She had two young girls, and she went astray. And how the girls had left her, and she had throwed her life away. And she thought there was no more hope for her.
But I said, "God, be merciful! 'Those who He has foreknew, He has called.'"
She said, "Are you Reverend Branham, from there?"
I said, "I am."
She said, "I'm ashamed of myself, to be sitting here like this." She said, "Do you think there would be a chance for me?"
I said, "Jesus has His arms stretched out, waiting for you to come, lady." And the other people begin to take up. And I said, "Would you walk out here on this floor with me?"
She said, "I will, sir."
I took her by the hand; I said, "You're about the age of my mother. Would you kneel here with me, on the floor?" And there in the floor, we broke up that place that afternoon, to an old-fashioned meeting. And God saved that woman, by His grace. She dressed herself and come to the meeting, and as far as I know, living a Christian life tonight.

39 What is it? Oh, God requires perfection. He requires your repentance. He requires your loyalty to Him. But He's looking tonight. No matter how much you've sinned, how little or how much, you are still a sinner, and cannot get in no other way but by Jesus Christ, God's all-sufficient Sacrifice. And in Him you are perfected forever. Think of it. It's not nothing you do. It's not new pages you turn. It's not a new life you start. It's a confession of your wrong, and God's grace to you. That brings you to perfection, and then you are perfected in Jesus Christ.

40 I trust tonight, friend of mine, while we are here at this great crucial moment now, when decisions must be made after hearing this story... You might have never heard it before. But you can't go out one of those doors the same person you come in; you must go out better or worse.
And while we bow our heads just a moment, I want you to think mightily about it. What about your soul tonight? Jesus Christ died for you.

41 You say, "Brother Branham, when I can quit smoking, when I can quit drinking, when I can straighten this thing up, I'll do it." Oh, it will never be done right. You'll never be able to do it. Why don't you just come the way you are? And, by faith, go to that Stream, thy flowing wounds supply, then redeeming love could be your theme, and shall be till you die.
Why take a substitute? Why try to get in by your church? Why try to come in because you quit drinking or quit lying? Come by the way of perfection. "For, by one Sacrifice, He has perfected forever those that are sanctified."
"How do I get sanctified?"

42 Confess your sins in the presence of the blood of Jesus; and the Life that come from that blood, comes back to the worshipper, and sanctifies Him from the desires of the things of the world. For, by that all-sufficient sacrifice, He has sanctified us; one Spirit, we are all baptized into one body. "Now there's no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, to them that walk not after the flesh, but the Spirit." If you're trying to walk by the Spirit and still lusting for the flesh, the sacrifice hasn't been sufficiently applied to you. But the worshipper once purged, has no more desire of sin.

43 That was Calvary. It isn't a place to sell flowers, or a little place to do this or that. It was a place where God and man were reconciled. It was a place where peace and perfect safety was brought to mankind. Can you go with me tonight, my sinner friend, to Calvary, and by faith apply this blood to your own soul, and let the Holy Ghost come and sanctify you by His great sacrifice?
Before we pray, would you raise your hand to God, and say, "Be merciful to me, God. I now confess all my sins, upon this Good Friday night. And I appreciate the great suffering that Christ did for me. I now surrender my own will, my own motives and everything, to follow You from this day, henceforth." Will you raise your hand, say, "Remember me, Brother Branham, in prayer; that's the decision of my heart." Is there any, this great night, while we wait just a moment? Over here on my right-hand side, surely there's one along there. Are you ashamed of your sins? Are you ashamed of what you've done?

44 The world tonight is looking for heroes. And it has heroes, physically speaking.
One day yonder in Switzerland, when Switzerland was at stake, the little Swiss party had gathered out into the fields, to defend their economy. The great oncoming army was too great for them; they were all trained, had big spears and shields. The Swiss could do nothing but give up. They were backed up against a mountain. Then there was a hero stepped out. Somebody had to die. And if they lost the battle...
.

45 They had nothing but old sickle blades, and rocks, sticks, to fight with. When, the oncoming army looked like a brick wall. If they were taken, their lovely little wives would be ravished, their young girls would be ravished, their babies would be killed, their heads would be busted, their homes would be gone, everything would be lost.
Then there was a man, whose name is too quickly forgotten, by the name of Arnold von Winkelried. He stepped out, and said, "Men of Switzerland, this day I give my life for Switzerland." He said, "Just over the mountain yonder is a little white home. I've got a wife and three children waiting for me. But they'll never see me again, for, this day I give my life for Switzerland."
They said, "What will you do, Arnold von Winkelried?"
He said, "Follow me, and do the best you can with what you have to do with."

46 And he looked over the army until he found the thickest of the spears. Then he stuck up his hands in the air; he run towards that big brick wall of spears, and screaming, "Make way for liberty! Make way for liberty!" A hundred spears turned to catch his charge; he threw his arms out and grouped them into his own bosom, which pinned him down, and he died on the end of those spears. Those Swiss followed him with clubs and sticks. That great display of heroism routed that army, till the Swiss beat them out of the land. And they've never had a war from that day, since.

47 Stand up in Switzerland and name the name of Arnold von Winkelried, you'll see tears run down their cheeks. Why? He saved their land. That was a great hero deed. It is seldom compared with, and never exceeded, in this earth.
But, oh, it was a little thing to what happened one day. When Adam's race stood, demons marching in from every side, prophets had failed, law had failed, sacrifice of bulls and lambs had failed, man's nature had failed, everything. And Adam's little race stood, defeated; outnumbered by devils, superstitions, sickness, diseases. There was One stepped out in heaven, and said, "This day I'll die for Adam's race." He came to the earth and was made flesh. He looked right down where the midst of the spears was the darkest. The very darkest of all man's dreads was death, and He took death into His bosom. And on Calvary He paid the sacrifice, and screamed, "Make a way for Liberty!"

48 And He screams to His church, "Take this which I have left you, My blood and My Spirit, and fight with ever what you've got." We can conquer tonight, through that, friend. You can drive the devil from you. Every old enemy that's in your life, it can be drove out by the blood and the Spirit of Christ, and you can stand perfect in His presence. Christ made the way.
Could you do as much as lift your arm to Him, and say, "Forgive me."? God bless you, brother. Someone else, "Be merciful to me, God. I now confess my wrongs."?
Is there some lukewarm church members who go to church every day and maybe try to be as pious as can be, but yet you know that temper and indifference and selfishness, habits cling you down till you don't have victory? Would you want to be cleansed by the blood tonight from all of that? "For the worshipper once purged has no more conscience..." Would you like to lift your hand, you church member? God bless you, lady. Lift your hands and say, "Brother Branham, remember me in prayer." God bless you, lady. That's right. That's a real... That's a real thing to do. God bless you back there, sir.

49 Someone else lift your hand, say, "Be merciful to me, God. I know I profess Christianity, but I don't live it. I know I don't. And in my heart, I'm really not right with You. I want to be one of God's elected. I feel in my heart that I am, but I've never laid aside the weights that does so easily beset me. And I want to lay them aside tonight. And, by God's grace, I will do it. Pray for me." Would you raise your hand? God bless you, lady. Someone else. Just while we're waiting.
While we're waiting quietly, everyone now with your heads bowed in prayer, softly hum this now.
There is a Fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's vein,
And sinners plunged beneath His...
Lose all their guilty stain, lose...
Won't you think it over just now? Don't try to wash it off. Christ is on your hand.
Pilate tried it, this morning, along about six o'clock; but his hands are still bloody, guilty bloody. You know what happened to him. He went up in Switzerland, many years later, lost his mind, plunged himself to death in a pool of water. This morning, in Switzerland, hundreds of people come to watch the scene: Blue water boils up from the bottom of that big hole of water. They do it every year. It's an old legend, they say, that God refused water to cleanse his hands.

50 Brother, no matter how many times you are baptized, whatever you try to do, nothing will cleanse your hands but the blood of Christ. God refused it. And the blue water, after two thousand years, nearly, still boil up. God refuses it. Your self-righteousness cannot cleanse your sins. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Think of it now. We're going to pray, just a moment.
I wonder if I could ask something tonight. When He stood there at Pilate's judgment hall, this morning, and said, "If My kingdom was of this world, I could speak to My Father and straightway He would send Me twelve legions of angels." When, one of them could destroy the world. "I would speak to Him, and twelve legions of angels would be right at My disposal." He could have done it. But He stood there, meek and humble, to take your death and take your sins.

51 Will you be grateful enough for that Sacrifice tonight, you who are needy of it, and needy of God's blessings; would you stand to your feet for this prayer? Just stand up to your feet, you who want to be remembered in this prayer, saying, "God, be merciful to me. I'm guilty; I've done things wrong, and I now want to accept my pardoning through Christ Jesus." Will you come to your feet just at this time? God bless you, young lady. That's the courage. Just remain standing there.

52 Do you mean to tell me you raised your hand, and then not sincere enough to stand to your feet? What good has the Gospel ever done to you? Oh, such playing with church, playing with God! The hour is soon at hand, one of these days an atomic bomb will strike around here somewhere, in one of these big power plants. There will not be one split second to think it over. It will be too late then, and maybe before next Easter, or even this Easter. Won't you stand now, say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I now accept Christ, by the offering Himself as a propitiation for my sins. And by His grace, and His grace alone, I abide in the presence of God." Will you confess your wrong? He that will hide his sins shall not prosper. He that confesses his sin, has mercy. It's up to you, He's watching.

53 Now, our Blessed Lord, in the appropriated number tonight stands three penitent souls, one man and two women.
As I am thinking, Lord, of Calvary, when one on one side, said, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom;" the other one said, "If Thou be, let us see a miracle; take us off the cross and save Yourself." And the other one said, "God, be merciful to me." And Your head swung to its right side, and said, "Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise." But You were quiet to the other one, because there was no repentance.
And, Father God, I pray that these maybe... I'll trust that they are the only three in the building, that feels that they do need to confess their wrongs. But that they have come the all-sufficient way, of the way of the cross. Forgive them, Lord, and bless them. They are standing here tonight; as You stood for them, in Pilate's judgment hall; as You stood for them, between the heavens and earth, when the sun went down and the moon would not give its light, and the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom. I pray, God, that You will bless them and give them of Thy mercies, and cleanse them with Thy blood. And baptize them by Your sanctifying power, into the body of Your own Son, Christ Jesus, then they are preserved for time and eternity. Bless the others who feel that they are all right, that they have already met this and did so. I pray this blessing to them, in Christ's name. Amen.

54 God bless you. And you who are standing close to those who raised up, reach over and shake their hands, somebody, and say, "The Lord bless you," that's right, as the hand of fellowship.
We are now just a little late in our services. How many love the Lord Jesus? raise your hand. I wonder, in silence now, or just quiet as we could, in commemoration of Him who is omnipresent, That's here tonight, if we could softly sing:
It was down at the cross where my Saviour died,
Down there for cleansing from sin I cried;
There to my heart (when you met the requirement,
laid your hands upon it), there to my heart
was the blood applied;
Oh, glory to His name!
Let us sing softly now, as we bow our heads to Him.
Down at the cross where my Saviour died,
Down there for cleansing from sin I cried;
There to my heart was the blood applied;
Glory to His name!
Glory to His name, precious name!
Glory to His precious name!
There to my heart was the blood applied;
Glory to His name!

55 Now quietly, with your heads bowed. You who are saved, say, "Oh..." Raise up your hand now.
Oh, precious Fountain that saves from sin!
I am so glad I have entered in;
There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean;
Glory to His name!
Glory to His name, precious name!
Glory to His name, precious name!
There to my heart was the blood applied;
Glory to His name!
Now with your hands down, your heads bowed. I just thought: Someone called a few moments ago, and said someone wanted to be remembered tonight in prayer, for their body. They couldn't get back to the meeting for Sunday night, for the great healing service. Would you stand to your feet, you who want to be remembered in that prayer just now?
...to my heart was the blood applied;
Glory to His name!
Glory to...............

56 Now with your heads bowed. "He was wounded for your transgressions, bruised for your iniquity, the chastisement of your peace was upon Him, and with His stripes you were healed." Glory to His name!
Now, Blessed Father, as we humbly approach the cross just now, where grace and mercy found me, there the bright and morning star sheds its beams around me. These sick are standing in Your presence. They are believing just now, that by faith, they look at that striped back, yonder. "And by His stripes we were healed." Most Holy Father, we come confessing our faith, believing that You heal our sick bodies, through the great vicarious suffering of the Lord Jesus. And we offer for this people who is standing, a prayer of faith, that You promised would save the sick. And we, together, as a unit of Your believers tonight. You said, "Wherever two or three are gathered, I will be in their midst." And we ask mercy for them, that Thy grace may now touch their innermost soul, that something will anchor way down deep; that they'll know that Christ is here and has spoke to them, saying, "Child of mine, I've took your sickness yonder at Calvary. Now just cast all your cares on Me, for I care for you." And may they be healed, every whit whole, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

57 And as they sit down now, someone close to them, lay your hands upon them, somebody that was praying for them. The Bible said, "They shall lay their hands on the sick; they shall recover." The Lord bless.

58 If I am not mistaken, am I not looking at the man that was healed here a couple days ago ... or, couple Sundays ago, that was deaf or something in the ears? I see you enjoying the meeting tonight. You hear me all right now? That's good. Wonderful! Just stand up to your feet just a moment. How many remembers him being here? And he passed through the prayer line, brought him back up to the platform, and the Lord healed him and made him well. Blessed be the Lord! Thank you, brother, for your testimony. It could be through the dozens! But isn't He wonderful?

59 Now, we want to see you tomorrow night, early. And then Sunday morning, early. Sunday afternoon, and if you can get back for the healing service Sunday night. Until we meet, may we stand and sing our dismissing song, "Take The Name Of Jesus With You."
Take the name of Jesus with you,
Child of sorrow and of woe;
It will joy and comfort...
(Turn right around and shake
hands now with everybody.)
Take it everywhere you go.
Precious name, (turn right around
and shake hands), O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, precious name,
O how sweet! How sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Now look this way.
At the name of Jesus bowing,
Falling prostrate at His feet,
King of kings in heaven we'll crown Him,
When our journey is complete.
Precious name, O how sweet! O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, O how sweet! How sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

60 Now remember the Neville choir ... quartet broadcast in the morning, WLRP, at 9:00. And Brother Stricker's come at 9:45, Sunday morning. Was just making a tape for him this afternoon, on the resurrection.
And now, until we meet again, the Lord's blessings be with you, as we bow our heads. And I'm going to ask my good friend and brother, Brother Palmer, from Macon, Georgia, if he will dismiss this audience in a word of prayer, while we pray. Brother Palmer.